1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to the field of window-based graphical user interfaces and more particularly to window focus and selection.
2. Description of the Related Art
In window-based graphical user interfaces, windows frequently overlap each other, obscuring the content of some of the windows. Several traditional techniques exist for locating and activating buried, or obscured, windows. A window may be considered buried or obscured if it is at least partially covered by another window. Traditionally, an obscured window may be located and activated by manually moving any obscuring windows out of the way so they no longer obscure the buried window. A user may have to rearrange windows to locate a particular window. For example, a user may move or minimize obscuring windows to see the content of an obscured window.
Other traditional ways of locating an obscured window include selecting or clicking a button or icon on the edge of a screen to activate and bring to the front a buried window and using a keyboard command to cycle through the titles of active windows and then selecting the desired buried window to activate it and bring it to the front. However, when using such keyboard-based mechanisms, a user is generally shown only small icons or abbreviated window titles and the content of obscured windows is not visible to the user. Thus, such keyboard-based mechanisms may not allow a user to differentiate between multiple obscured, but similar, windows. Yet another technique for locating and selecting an obscured window may be to sequentially select each window in turn, thus bringing each window in turn to the front until the desired window's content in viewable. Furthermore, when multiple windows of similar type, title, or content are each obscured, locating one of the windows may be both difficult and time consuming.
Additionally, modal dialog boxes, i.e., dialog boxes that must be dismissed before a user may interact with other windows, frequently obscure the content of windows. In many cases, the user requires access to obscured content in another window in order to properly deal with the modal dialog box, but cannot view the content until the dialog box is dismissed. Thus, a user may spend significant time and effort locating desired windows obscured by windows or other graphical elements.